


daylight cycle

by iidiiot



Series: world jump au (discontinued) [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Mentioned Eret - Freeform, Mentioned Fundy, Mentioned Jschlatt, Mentioned Tommyinnit, Mentioned Tubbo, part of the world jump au, rated teen for language and other minor potential triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26965168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iidiiot/pseuds/iidiiot
Summary: dream considers himself incredibly unlucky.very few know the pain of having to start all over, surrounded by the same people, over and over and over again.it's a curse that he remembers, rather than a blessing.
Relationships: Antfrost & Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & Darryl Noveschosch, Clay | Dream & Dave | Technoblade, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot, dream & antfrost, dream & illuminahd
Series: world jump au (discontinued) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962631
Comments: 13
Kudos: 220





	daylight cycle

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is part of the world jump au, created by me. this is part of a series, the first and primary fic being called "world walker". while it isn't necessary to have read it before reading this, i would definitely recommend it. that provides some needed context for this fic, and this provides a bit more background for that one.
> 
> the relationships in this fic were written to be read as purely platonic, but it's up to you, the reader, to interpret things how you'd like!
> 
> (as a side note, i am not extremely familiar with illumina and he might seem ooc. if so, i apologize. i had bits and pieces of the one manhunt video to go off of when writing for him).
> 
> finally! if you'd like to chat with me about the au, i'm always extremely happy to! you can either chat with me here or on my tumblr: @ii-iidiiot
> 
> edit (10/25): noticed a small inconsistency in the plotline, went in to fix it.

since he doesn't remember his first few worlds very well, dream likes to pretend he was normal then. he is anything but, though the pain wanes a little when he acts like he was, once. now he remembers everything. he doesn't know when it started-- ironic, isn't it? that he remembers everything but when he started remembering.

he should consider himself lucky. he's been told as much before. most don't remember a thing about their past lives, but he remembers everything.

that's what makes him feel so horribly unlucky. he remembers and no one else does. he's forced to see the same people over and over, make friends with them once, only to have to start all over in the next world. and the next. and the next.

george, bad, sapnap, and ant had been his first real friends. they were the most recurring members in most of his worlds. his fondest memories-- the ones he actually wants to remember-- all involve them. even when they're hunting each other down ("manhunts," the deity whispers into his head, grin crooked and mind thirsty for blood). even when they're hunting each other down, killing one another.. it's fun. he lives for the thrill of it, for the brief reprieve in needing to really make friends with them. they can share laughs, this way, but there's no need to really bond with them.

dream bonds with them anyway. everytime. they're thrown together with instincts ingrained into them. he's beginning to think the deity just enjoys watching him suffer as he loses his friends over and over again. as far as he's concerned, that's what happens when they jump worlds. he loses them. they're the same people in every world, but they aren't the same friends.

he grows to hate the manhunts, just as he has everything else.

dream pauses in the branches of a tree, the shouts of the hunters in the distance distracting. he can hear them over the radio too. he wishes he could just catch a break. he carries the weight of so many worlds on his shoulders, the only one with the memories of them when they're gone. it's tiring. he's exhausted.

but the deity is cruel. it's a good thing he's got near infinite patience, with stamina far greater than that. he doesn't wait another moment as their voices draw closer, leaping to the next tree. he needs to keep moving, lest the pinpoint his location.

"oh, dream!" george's voice filters through the radio and across the forest. it's so familiar that, if he didn't know better, he would think george remembered too-- that george repeated the same thing in every manhunt just for old time's sake. but he does know better. george knows nothing but to hunt him down, to prevent him from destroying the fragment.

regardless, he laughs and continues leaping between trees. he's growing closer, just needs to find the portal to the end. he thinks that it's fittingly named. he reels back and tosses another eye of ender into the sky. it floats up and stops, just above his head. hovers. then it drops, right back into his waiting hands. just below him then.

dream clambers from the tree, draws out his shovel and pickaxe, and starts digging. it's all he can do. the faster he gets to the portal, the faster he can..

why does he always fight so hard to win? surely, the deity would get tired of this game if he quit playing it. if he kept losing.

in the end, dream knows why he continues to play. he would do anything to keep getting to see his friends. even if it means letting them hunt him relentlessly, even if it means killing them over and over again until he either kills the dragon or they kill him. they're his only reprieve in this hell of world hopping.

he remembers the manhunt when he discovered the truth behind world jumping. behind the fragments. it was.. was it his third? maybe the fifth. he can't remember which, but he remembers it.

the four of them had chased him relentlessly across the overworld, then across the nether. it spanned across days worth of time and he felt like he never got to sleep. he hardly did sleep. the resounding boom when he placed the last eye of ender into the portal frame alerted the hunters. he could hear them shouting over the radio. dream laughed, leaping into the portal.

the ender dragon never ceased to amaze him. it was massive and terrifying-- most likely intentionally. it was violent and deadly. it was everything and more. but dream was just as deadly, if not more so. he pulled his bow from his back, notched an arrow, aimed, and fired. one of the crystals, sat atop towering obsidian pillars, exploded. just nine more to go.

he managed to destroy three more in the time it took the others to get through the portal, signified by the noises the swirling liquid of the portal makes when disturbed. sapnap pulled himself up onto the main island first, jump headfirst into the chase. dream managed to fire off one last shot before he had to duck out of the way of a swinging sword. five more crystals left. the dragon roared, soaring overhead.

george managed to catch him by surprise, axe digging into his side. dream gasped loudly and threw himself into a roll, firing off another arrow. an explosion. four.

he barely missed the arrow ant fired at him. that made the decision for him. switching weapons, dream threw himself into battle. bad put up a good fight, taking out a good portion of his health, but he fell to dream's blade. george followed not long after, giving him time to destroy two more crystals while ant and sapnap scrambled for their discarded stuff. only one more pillar. he could do this.

he took off, getting distance from the two hunters. stopping at the last moment, dream spun on his heel and shot off the final arrow. the crystal exploded and the dragon shrieked out in pain as the connection between it and the crystal shattered. he allowed himself a brief moment to catch his breath and regenerate health before he went after ant. the poor hunter hadn't been expecting it, evidently, for he was dead in under a minute. sapnap was busy shouting into his radio and sprinting away, giving him time to get a few hits on the dragon as it swooped in.

he ducked into the obsidian basin beneath the dragon as it perched, wings flapping. he managed a good few hits before it took off again into the air. in the meantime, he gave chase to sapnap. the hunter met him in the middle, shield blocking his sword. sapnap nearly managed to kill him but dream managed a lucky hit, the other's items scattering across the ground. he was quick to regenerate health as fast as possible, spotting the dragon coming down once again. without the distraction of the hunters (despite their shouts over the radio, words taunting and frustrated), he was able to duck into the basin before the dragon perched. it gave him time for a few more hits. it was beginning to fly strangely now, clearly favoring one wing over the other.

the dragon was taking off for the fourth time from that obsidian basin when the hunters got back into the end. the dragon had to be nearly dead by now, he knew. he didn't have time to focusing on the hunters, merely ducking out of the way of their horribly unarmored and weaponless persons. he'd made sure to toss their stuff over the edge of the island in the breaks between the dragon flying low enough to the ground to be hit.

when the dragon came in for the fifth and final time, dream shot an arrow at george-- the nearest hunter-- and sent him careening back a few block. leaping up, dream sliced into the dragon's body. the explosion sent him to the ground, body skidding across the endstone underfoot. the hunters were frozen, watching the dragon's crackling body rise. it exploded into a shower of sparks.

"dream!" the gasp comes from george and dream's head snaps in his direction. he watches sapnap stumble and bad drop to his knees. ant is clutching his head. but george? george meets his eyes, mouth open. he recognizes the flash of recognition before the deity's angered screech echoes in his head. he watches as first bad is drawn out of the world with a snap, then sapnap, then ant. george reaches out for him, but then he, too, is gone. dream wants to scream, wants to sob, but there isn't any time. the world spins in a whirl of black and he's gone too, whisked off to another world with nothing but the hope that he'll get to see his friends again.

that. that is when he knew what the dragon was. what the crystals were. it all made sense. the dragon was in every world-- he knew that much. when it died, it unlocked the memories of that world's occupants. it was the only logical conclusion. the crystals had to be some sort of energy or life source for the dragon. that's why you couldn't kill the dragon without destroying the crystals first. god, it all made sense now--

even so, dream made sure to test it further. every manhunt that he succeeded in winning, he would watch his friends as the dragon exploded. they seemed to recognize him-- actually recognize him-- every time. then the deity, angered by his victory, would toss them out of that world and into the next. it seemed to be an endless cycle. even when he lost. the deity gave him no second chance, only moved them to the next world to repeat the same damn game.

one time, bad managed to skewer him just as he got the last hit on the dragon. he gasped, hands grasping at the blade. bad looked positively terrified. horrified, even, by what he'd done. he released the sword and stumbled back, even as dream hit the ground with a thump. "dream-- i.. i'm so sorry. i-- why did i stab you--" then he disappeared. dream kept the scar in his back to remember the encounter. he wasn't sure if the that was the deity attempting to be kind to him or not.

he didn't know how many times his friends had hunted him down, had tried and failed and actually killed him. he'd lost track at one point. he estimated somewhere around fifty manhunts or so, but he could never know for sure.

then the deity changed it up on him. rather than waking beside his friends, he woke beside a stranger. the other man, dressed in black, only looked back at him through worn eyes.

"this is different than the usual," the stranger commented. "i'm illumina. who are you?"

"dream," he responded naturally. "different than usual?"

"oh! right.. most of you don't remember.." illumina trailed into inaudible mumbles but dream perked up,

"remember? i remember. you remember?" he couldn't help the way his voice pitched excitedly, even as illumina looked at him with wide eyes.

"you actually remember too?" the man asked. dream gave an enthusiastic nod. "do you know what exactly we're supposed to be doing in this world? normally the deity says something by now.."

"manhunt," dream tells him instinctually. he knows that's what he's here for.

when he explains everything to a confused illumina, the man brightens a little, "wait, so it's basically a speedrun?"

dream nods, "speedrun, but with someone chasing you. normally i'm the one being chased, and normally there's more than one but.."

"you can chase me, if you want. it sounds fun." illumina offers. dream grins.

"okay. but don't say i didn't warn you." he tells the other.

the night of that first day falls and dream is still chasing after him. illumina's voice crackles over the radio, "wanna talk about something? its been awhile since i've shared a world with someone else, so it's nice to be able to talk."

it would be nice to speak with someone like him. someone that also remembers. so dream agrees, "sure! got anything in mind?"

they end up sharing stories of past lives. whereas most of dream's are those of manhunts, chased and hunted constantly, most of illumina's are of lonely worlds where he rushes to kill the dragon to entertain the deity.

"the deity speaks to me sometimes. they praise me when i kill the dragon faster than everyone else speedrunning in other worlds. they told me that i've done it the fastest so far." illumina says. the words hold muted pride, accompanied by a sense of tired resignation. it is something to be proud of-- to hold the deity's favor, if only temporarily-- but he also seems tired of running.

"maybe putting you here with me was a reward or something. you seem lonely. tired. maybe the deity could see that." dream comments.

illumina is silent for a long while, but he does eventually respond. "you might be right, dream. i'll take beating out other world's speedrunners constantly if it means i can get breaks like this sometimes. i'm just happy to have someone to talk to."

they find themselves together in a second world, after the first. they decide that illumina will hunt dream and off they go. this world repeats much like the last. when night falls, they share stories of their past lives. dream tells illumina about his friends. about george, sapnap, bad, and ant. illumina tells him about all of the things he's seen, all of the things he's done. dream learns a lot from illumina.

it's almost as if he can tell something is going to happen, for the night before the manhunt comes to an abrupt end, illumina thanks him once again for everything: befriending him, talking to him, laughing with him.. the next day, as dream fights off a drowned with a trident and illumina, he drowns.

the world spins out of focus and he wakes once again beside george, sapnap, bad, and ant. that same cycle from before repeats itself all over again. however, now dream also gets breaks between manhunts. the deity alters the world in various ways and pits he and his friends against the dragon, rather than each other. it is a nice change, compared to hunting and killing each other constantly. sometimes they manage to kill the dragon. others they don't. the deity resets everything at the end regardless, destroying that world and placing them in another.

there are worlds where he becomes an animal, where animals and monsters alike vary wildly in size. even still, there is another where they get a replica of the ender dragon to beat the real one with. it's strange, but fun.

there's the world where the ground falls from beneath their feet. it's there that they meet fundy. he remembers nothing, just like the others. dream's hopes of meeting another person that remembers-- of meeting another illumina-- dwindle. they fail to kill the dragon.

it's a long time until dream sees fundy again. it's also his first real world. the first world where the deity doesn't whisper instructions into the back of his mind and tell him what to do. he starts alone but others spawn soon enough-- his friends among them. he isn't sure how he let his first real world fall as far as it did. he still regrets it, if only a little.

wilbur is strange-- just as usual. he spawns and he seems just shy of clueless. it's standard, for him. dream has learned this over the worlds they share. he forms a country, starts a war. the world is hell. dream doesn't mean to become the villain, but he does. eventually, things start to calm down. he tries to stay away, to save the man from the pain of remembering, but he finds himself drawn to wilbur, even as he loses the election and falls into exhausted fits of paranoia. he finds himself giving wilbur tnt and siding with him, even as tommy tries to stop it. he sees himself in wilbur, a little, and maybe that's how he ends up helping wilbur remember again.

it was startling in their first shared world. there was nothing particularly special about wilbur, other than his wit and charm, but there was nothing particularly special about dream either. eventually, tubbo ends up joining their little group. he doesn't quite remember like they do, but he does remember. dream is sure the deity could easily stop it, could easily stop tormenting the poor kid by forcing him to remember things that he doesn't-- can't-- remember. the deity is cruel, however: dream knows this.

in the time they spend together, he and wilbur share stories from the time they spent in different worlds. it reminds him bitterly of those two worlds with illumina. he hopes the other is well. that he's able to find some semblance of happiness, wherever the deity puts him. wilbur's experiences vary widely from his own and even more so from illumina's. he speaks of sky worlds. there are other worlds that are filled with people. he tells of antarctic empires and newfoundlands, and of a place called smplive. in turn, dream relays information back to him about his manhunts and speedruns and challenge worlds. wilbur listens with rapt interest, just as dream does for him, and it's over this they bond all over again.

perhaps their memories are why they're able to tell when their time in the dreamsmp is coming to an end. he isn't sure how or why, but he knows, and wilbur does too. even tubbo seems to know something is off, though he doesn't seem to recognize why.

if he's honest, dream isn't too sure why the deity forced them to jump worlds. they hadn't beaten the dragon yet, weren't really planning to. he was in no rush to, not with how killing the dragon in other worlds forced a jump. he likes the think that it's just because the deity grew bored of watching them. he isn't sure how. there was constantly something happening. but it seems like the most logical conclusion.

even so, there is nothing dream can do but watch as, one by one, his friends begin to disappear from the world. wilbur is the first gone, which is both surprising and not at the same time. then schlatt disappears, then tommy. one by one, they all leave until it's just him and techno. he was beginning to think the deity was going to leave him here alone-- was going to take techno too and leave him here to rot in the shell of what was the dreamsmp.

with nothing else do to, he and techno take to fighting. they fight monsters. they fight each other. it's the only thing they can do to keep themselves occupied. to keep their minds off of their friends. dream is far more used to this than techno is, but techno is far less emotional. in the end, there is no clear winner of who did better in blocking everything out.

they spend months there together, alone. after a while, walking the abandoned streets of the dreamsmp gets too depressing, even for him and techno. they stick toward the community house after that, only straying as far as they have to in order to survive.

realistically, dream is only waiting for the day that he wakes and techno isn't with him anymore. he doesn't tell the half-pig as much. he can't. on the dawn of the second month of just the two of them, dream stops leaving the community house. techno doesn't question him. doesn't force him to leave.

two weeks after dream stops leaving, techno does too. they've both read through every book in the community house, sorted through every chest more than three times. they've fought more than six dozen times. techno wins most often but as time continues, they begin to draw more and more often.

it's during one of said fights, one where neither has the energy to fight but with no reason to say no, that dream feels the world tilt on its axis. he throws himself at techno. when their blades clash, dream is torn from the world and thrown bodily into another.

he rouses to voices, panicked and all too familiar. his fingers reach uselessly for the sword he'd been clutching only moments before. when he finds the energy to open his eyes, to sit up, the first thing he sees is the face of one wilbur soot. the color drains from his face when their eyes meet behind dream's mask and dream isn't able to stifle the sob that's been tearing at his throat-- destroying his vocal chords, ripping and digging and scratching to free itself.

wilbur tips to one side. two people steady him. fundy, on his right. eret, on his left. dream looks around him. george and sapnap, bad and ant. his eyes trail back to wilbur. the other man tilts, head lolling. his body crumples to the ground..

a new cycle begins.

**Author's Note:**

> the final word count was around 3.5k.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed!! :)


End file.
